The Ad Man speaks

Scott Seaborn, head of mobile advertising for OgilvyOne U.K., has joined with the TM Forum to help teach telcos the ad business, including chairing the forum's Management World advertising sessions in Orlando, Fla., in November. He told Telephony Executive Features Editor Rich Karpinski how he sees the two industries working together.

Technology-led: Mobile has been technology-led historically and perhaps for too long. What that really means is very clever mobile agencies, hotshots and inventors have come up with things, really good solutions to marketing needs, but quite often these things have been pitched to brands based on the technology. So we've invented technology “X” and talked to a brand and said, “You've got to do it because, well, everyone has a mobile.” These things then have never really happened because these ideas haven't been formed with the consumer in mind.

Creative first: [The better approach] is about bringing creative into the mix right at the beginning and arming them with a good knowledge of what's technically available and what they can do, and then letting them use their creative process to come up with the best ways to use mobile for a brand but with the consumer at heart.

Trusted relationships: What we end up with is a very, very open dialogue with these people, one they very much appreciate. There are some very important bits of transparency [necessary for an effective mobile campaign]. We need to have a plain and simple statement to them about what we're doing. We need to be relevant in what we communicate. And we need to make it easy — don't make them jump through hoops to get to us. I think going forward you'll see agencies and telecoms and other partners work together to create this solid, secure, trusting environment for a dialogue between a brand and a consumer with information. Again, this needs to be a creative-led thing because you need to understand the consumer to do all that.